Back in the late 70's, I assembled what for the times was a pretty decent system.
Not state of the art but it was what I could afford at the time. I had a Yamaha CR2020 receiver, ADS L810 ii speakers and a Denon DP790 turntable.
The turntable and some Stax headphones were acquired at a fire sale. Later added a Sony 3 head tape deck and put a Grace cartridge on the Denon since the Yamaha had a MC input. It was a very satisfying system at the time but as some have mentioned, relying on hearing memory is not reliable.
I still have the CR2020 in storage and gave the speakers to my little brother. currently live with a very modest system, Yamaha, KEF ,Technics TT and a Sony CD/DVD player. For "serious" listening, I Run Amazon Ultra hd from a Dell precision desktop through a JDS DAC and amp to HiFi man Ananda or Sennheiser 600 series headphones. Now living in an Audiophile dealer desert, I can't really compare to newer high end stuff. Probably wouldn't matter as my mid 70 yo ears no longer discern the difference.
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If we look at it from a nostalgic point of view, yes. Oh that smooth, velvety sound of the 70’s. Just plug in an old system and it’s often not what we remember. I think there was excellent gear back then but not at common man prices. Today, you can get some quality gear for relatively cheap.
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I have fond memories of my old Pioneer when it was new- it sounded very good and the biggest point is that it never sounded offensive.
I do not believe you can say that about lots of contemporary amplifiers.
Another thing is that listening to vintage receivers today is not a valid impression.
I would love to hear a vintage amplifier design made ground up all new parts. I bet it would surprise....
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I picked up a near-mint (in appearance) Sansui AU-517 integrated to go with the TU-717 I've owned for almost 30 years. It's teamed with a pair of Monitor Audio Silver 7s and the sound is unexpectedly good. Clarity and dynamics are there in spades. IMO, for lack of a better term, vintage amps seem to produce music with more 'body' to it. A Sony CDP XA20ES CD player and an Adcom GCD-700 carousel player, both running through an older MSB Gold Link DAC/Powerbase, make CDs sound the best I can recall in a long time. This little system was playing last weekend when two fellows came by to pick up a PS Audio HCA-2/Cary SL-100 combo I was selling. I retired a couple of years ago and have been selling off most of my higher-end (for me) components to beef up my savings. They seemed to be as impressed with the vintage gear's sound as with the newer amp's/preamp's sound through a pair of ADS L-810s (which was pretty sweet). My condo has a very open floor-plan in the area where both of those systems are located, and I think that was a big positive in the equation.
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Well my first real setup was a Sony Str 7065 paired $259 and a AR TT with Shure cart $100 from Crazy Eddie's in Blkyn NY.i didn't like the manual TT so sold it and bought a Technics SL1350 with Shure V15 cart $400.Hooked it up to Bose 901 s 2a which I bought used from a guy on Sutton Pl.in NYC for $315 they were a year old new they went for $575 fair traded,I got the stands and custom made stands with them.Well I was 22 just married 1973 and this system rocked.
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Another +1 for @jsalerno277
well said , thank you .
I too am enjoying new an old systems in my home - they all give me great pleasure when listening to them . I find that when I try to mix old and new components they usually don’t put out the desired results .
the one piece that seems to be universally able to be slotted into any system is an entry level Atma-Sphere pre-amp with SN7‘a which make everything sound good - somehow .
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I had this pretty good single modern speaker that i used for test purposes on my work bench. One day I came across a very old Fisher 500 mono receiver for little money. I replaced the original coupling caps with Hovland Musicaps just because and hooked it up to the lone speaker, and was quite surprised by the very good quality of the sound just using its tuner. I added a cd player and felt humbled by the results. I left all in place and used that oddball system as my music source while I dinked around on projects. I still remember having someone comment on how good that all sounded. It would never replace anything I have used in my listening room for these many years, but I am still impressed by that 1950's product.
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My receiver is a g9000.
Fsntastic!
pioneer pl58
dahlquist 20’s
perfect in every way.
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I’ve been putting back together my basement system. For the past 2 weeks I’ve been swapping out between a Musical Fidelity A1008, upgraded Jolida 302CRC, and my Sansui AU9500 on my Focal vinyl only system. That damn Sansui just sounds more alive than the other 2. Slamming bass and mid bass and soaring high end. It sounds meaty or juicy is the best descriptor I can think of. Really good array of analog tone controls as well I fiddle with from time to time depending on the recording. Not sure if it’s neutral but don’t care. Been thinking of trying out my 801 matrix V2s with it but probably doesn’t have the juice for those.
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Back in the late 70s there was a race by the major electronics manufacturers (Pioneer, Kenwood, Sansui, etc.) to lower Total Harmonic Distortion or THD. Sales were often driven by these numbers and lower THD was a great way to generate interest in upgrades. As new electronics were coming out with ultra-low THD many listeners began to notice that the newer gear actually sounded worse (harder edged, less musical and more electronic sounding) than similar previous models which had higher THD.
Engineer Matti Otala from Harman Kardon then discovered a new type of distortion called Transient Intermodulation Distortion or TIM, which seemed to correlate to the negative sound attributes heard with low THD designs. He found that decreasing THD which was commonly accomplished by adding negative feedback created higher TIM which was believed to be more harmful than the higher THD. So many of these manufacturers then started cutting back on negative feedback and TIM became a measurement which was often included along with THD.
This demonstrates how just focusing on measurements can be counter productive, in that we may have errors in measurement due to test equipment limitations or we may be measuring the wrong things. Who knows how many other forms of distortion may still be unknown that can have an effect on human perception of music reproduction.
Many of the receivers from that era are being serviced and sold for very high prices, with sellers saying "they don't make them like they used to!" and playing up the perception that larger and heavier electronics must be attributed to their high quality. The truth is that many of them don't sound good at all due to the focus of their initial designs during that era.
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Finally: specs/reviews (I constantly read Julian Hirsch during the ’specs era’)...
I settled on: "Is it INVOLVING?"
Sucks you into the content, forget the equipment. Listen for a long session with no fatigue?
For me, tubes are more involving than SS, and then we have the issue: Every time you approach anything: auto; receiver; tt, speakers, coffee maker: is it still a thrill to see/be glad of your choice.
Keeping vintage going properly can be very satisfying, and every time you turn it on, the expectations are high.
It is wise to find a pro to check/repair any vintage components, resistors etc. go out of spec. I don’t ’upgrade’, I just get back to original performance.
I have compared new/old/SS/tube, vintage tubes do it for me.
Also, the vintage FEATURES are a big draw for me.
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Well listening to my 50 year old Sansui now and it sounds really really good and involving. It’s had service and completely checked out from the previous owner 10 or so years ago with a few things replaced. I have the receipts of 300 or so. I think it’s good for now but that bug in the back of my mind says get is totally recapped etc! I’m afraid it will lose its panache so I’m gonna hold off as I feel it’s doing its thing.
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Ohh and I leave it one all the time as I read the current inrush is the worst thing for old caps. Not sure if that’s the right thing to do or not. Conflicting opinions on that.
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Back in the early-mid 70’s I had a Marantz 1050 amp, but, remember a fellow dorm mate down the hall with a Sansui receiver, and I remember being impressed by it. He was very proud of that piece of equipment, and had every right to be.
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@bill_k
@elliottbnewcombjr
+1
I remember the spec wars… incredibly low distortion numbers for components that sounded terrible. I remember 70’s and 80’s Pioneer, Marantz, Yamaha, and Sansui… they do not hold a candle to high end equipment of the 80’s And 90’s let alone now. I owned / own some of that stuff. So much advancement has been made in better actual sound, ignoring specs it is incredible. It was a very dark time except for truly high end components… Threshold, Nakamichi, Audio Research… etc.
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As a collector of ‘70’s integrated amplifier’s, I enjoy great pride of ownership from many pick-of-the-litter classics when expertly restored. It’s a blast finding speaker combinations that bring out their best.
Many components of this decade are well designed and built which easily lends itself to a quality rebuild including a Paul Hovenga modified Accuphase P-250 which is the daily driver of my Dynaudio Heritage Special loudspeakers.
The only receiver in my stash is a Marantz 2330 which is a sonic jewel with many loudspeakers. I also wouldn’t discard a Sansui G8000 after it had the Many Moons Audio treatment.
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My guess it's like a 60's muscle car. It was fun then and it's fun now. And and VW GTI will outperform it in comfort in many ways (not all).
A month ago for the fun of I hooked up an old Adcom amp to my system - it was my friends and he had it for a while and in college it was my idea of audio bliss.
I hooked it up to my preamp and my speakers...it sound horrible. It lacked the dynamics of my Moon amps - sound stage was smaller, bass was undefined and it was an experiment that lasted for 15 minutes. And in college that amp with Boston Acoustics speakers was something I could and did listen to for hours.
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Nostalgia always sounds better, until you listen to it.
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